Who would still start a business seriously after being reborn?

Chapter 597 Knowing and Choosing
A Blizzard consultant stood up and shouted in English, "No, no, no, this is absolutely unacceptable. We value our reputation. Your actions will seriously damage our image."

Cheng Yi glanced at the Blizzard consultant, frowned, and said, "You can just listen in; you don't need to offer your opinions."

The Blizzard consultant was taken aback by what he heard. Cheng Yi said in a calm tone, "Now that you've come to China, you should understand Chinese customs and etiquette. We invited you out of goodwill, not so that you could interfere in our affairs."

Upon hearing Cheng Yi's words, the Blizzard consultant sat down with a disgruntled expression.

Cheng Yi glanced at Tang Yan and smiled, "You continue."

"Yes." With Cheng Yi's support, Tang Yan immediately became bolder and said, "In addition, we need to deeply understand the psychology of users. Right now, the fastest and cheapest way to spread information is through rumors and gossip. I mentioned gossip before, and this second trick is rumors. We can spread some seemingly plausible rumors about Azeroth. For example, there is a special NPC on the continent of Azeroth who has been implanted with the rumored artificial intelligence technology. As long as players provide him with enough gifts, he can answer a question that goes beyond the virtual world."

"Tell me the details," Cheng Yi asked.

2005 was indeed the year that artificial intelligence exploded, with topics about artificial intelligence appearing everywhere in newspapers, magazines, and online media.

Recently, the first driverless car driven by artificial intelligence traveled 134 kilometers across the desert.

This has alarmed many countries that have never ventured into artificial intelligence, leading to the emergence of AI research institutes in various universities.

Using this as a gimmick can indeed add a lot of mystery, but artificial intelligence has nothing to do with ordinary people, and most ordinary people don't even know what it is.

He was eager to see what else Tang Yan could come up with.

Tang Yan continued, "Money and sex are hurdles that human society can never get around. If we want to attract social attention, we have to start with money. My idea is to spread a rumor that this mysterious NPC in Azeroth can predict everything, including scratch cards."

"This is outrageous!" The Blizzard advisor stood up again and roared, "This is fraud! We won't allow it!"

"Get him out!" Cheng Yi waved his hand, and several security guards immediately dragged the Blizzard consultant out.

Cheng Yi looked at Tang Yan and asked, "Your rumor will soon be exposed."

Tang Yan said, "We can set this NPC to be very mysterious, with his location constantly changing. Once a player makes a donation to him, he will disappear and reappear in another corner of the map or even in a dungeon. Only after making donations a certain number of times can he communicate with the player, but we will not say the specific number of times, and we will not acknowledge this rumor."

“That’s feasible.” Cheng Yi nodded slowly.

Rumors are the easiest thing to spread.

It can almost spread like a virus.

"You continue," Cheng Yi said again.

Tang Yan continued, "These two plans are for the early stages or before the game's public beta. For example, we can say that this rumor is from the European test server. The third plan is for after the game has started."

"We actively create or amplify gossip news within the game, such as ['A guild leader absconds with items worth 300 million Huaxia coins', ['A beautiful school beauty travels thousands of miles just to meet her guild leader', and ['Two major guilds clash because of a woman'. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter, as long as there's something to spread, the main thing is to tell players how cool the guild leader is and encourage players to form guilds."

Tang Yan became more and more excited as he spoke, spitting as he talked, completely immersed in his own world.

He didn't notice that most of the people in the audience had changed their expressions.

The other elites from the group looked at each other in dismay, all feeling that this was an insult to the game.

They all had the same thought in their minds: why would President Cheng hire such a person?
The atmosphere in the meeting room quickly turned icy.

After Tang Yan finished speaking, he looked at Cheng Yi expectantly, only to find that Cheng Yi was expressionless, showing no emotion.

After a long silence, Cheng Yi finally spoke slowly, smiling as he said, "Tang Yan, your ideas are indeed very bold."

Tang Yan quickly lowered his head.

Cheng Yi said, "However, the game industry, especially online games, is essentially about understanding and utilizing human nature. Vanity, social interaction, sexual attraction, competition... these are the most primitive and powerful driving forces."

He glanced at the disapproving elites in the room and said, "You must think it's low-class, right? You think it's not presentable and doesn't match the identity of our Momo Group."

Everyone present looked at Cheng Yi.

Cheng Yi said, "If we weren't facing internal and external troubles, I would also like to release some amazing CG game videos step by step and keep burning money to promote them. But this conventional approach is no longer suitable for us."

Cheng Yi stood up and said slowly, "Microsoft will soon resolve the sanctions issue in Europe. Once they do, they will turn around and deal with us. We don't have much time to develop peacefully."

“Blizzard pursues art and balance, while we are now pursuing survival and the market.” Cheng Yi looked at the remaining three Blizzard consultants and smiled, “I hope you can also understand the differences between the two markets. In the Chinese market, sometimes we do need some more down-to-earth methods.”

A Blizzard consultant said in a deep voice, "President Cheng, with your strong background and strength in China, you can absolutely spread World of Warcraft to every corner of the Internet. There is absolutely no need to use such methods."

Cheng Yi smiled, looked at Tang Yan, and said, "Assistant Tang, you should explain to them why we, with our strength, still need to resort to such underhanded methods."

Cheng Yi's underhanded words made Tang Yan's heart skip a beat.

He knew that if he didn't explain himself well, he would be considered a scoundrel.

He swallowed hard and said nervously, "I don't think traffic promotion and user selection are the same thing."

Tang Yan picked up a book from the table and said, "Just like this book, our Momo Group can make the whole country know the name and content of this book, and we can advertise this book everywhere, but so what?"

"Even if the entire nation knows about this book, are they obligated to buy and read it?"

Tang Yan said, “You may think my example is a paradox, but in my opinion, user knowledge and user choice are two different things. It’s useless for us to let 100 million users know; we have to let 100 million users choose.”

Tang Yan's words surprised many of the business elites present.

What Tang Yan said is very superficial; in professional terms, it's about conversion rate.

If we consider conversion rates, then the conversion rates of Tang Yan's two solutions are indeed very high.

Moreover, another manifestation of top-tier marketing is the speed of dissemination.

As Tang Yan's words were translated by the simultaneous interpreter, the Blizzard advisors fell silent.

They always pursue grand performances, high-end image, and good reputation, but they neglect the most basic things.

Elegance has never been mainstream.

Cheng Yi deeply understands this point. If World of Warcraft in his previous life hadn't been so self-important and pretentious, games like Conquer Online would hardly exist.

They are too self-important, too sophisticated, so sophisticated that even their promotions are often several-minute CG blockbusters.

The result is that many young people with little education simply don't have the interest to watch your blockbuster.

Who the hell has that kind of free time?
It was precisely this arrogant attitude that almost led to World of Warcraft's defeat by a copycat game.

This game is little known, but at the time, it almost destroyed World of Warcraft.

Its name is "Earthquake".

In 2006, opinions were divided on whether Cabal Online or World of Warcraft had more players.

After all, "Cabal Online" once held the record for the fastest online player count to reach 30 in China, and at its peak, it had a whopping 48 active online players.

At the same time, the peak number of concurrent players for World of Warcraft in China was 50.

One of the biggest reasons this game became popular is that it divided the players of World of Warcraft.

Blizzard Entertainment launched World of Warcraft, and South Korean company ESTSoft quickly followed up with Cabal Online.

Because both of these MMORPGs adopted full 3D modeling, and unlike the early World of Warcraft which focused on polishing the storyline, Cabal Online put a lot of effort into the game's combat feel and the characteristics of different classes, even stitching the combo system of action games into the MMO game.

When World of Warcraft became a global phenomenon, ESTSoft drew inspiration from Blizzard's success and skillfully incorporated artifact quests, faction battles, and large-scale open-world battlefields into the game.

Anyway, it’s just one sentence.

We have everything that World of Warcraft has, and we also have things that World of Warcraft doesn't have.

In this era, Asian gamers are actually more receptive to Korean and Japanese games.

After all, not everyone has the patience to explore the storyline, but the combat feel is something you can genuinely experience as soon as you start playing.

Therefore, as a lower-tier alternative to World of Warcraft, Cabal Online became incredibly popular shortly after its open beta launch. Not only did it have a large player base, but its initial marketing even touted it as ushering in a new era of MMORPG 2.0.

Another reason for the success of "Cabal Online" is that Blizzard was too arrogant.

Seeing that the Blizzard consultants had fallen silent, Cheng Yi looked at Tang Yan, who was still in a daze, and said, "Your plan is acceptable, but it's also very rough. Go and assemble a small team to be in charge of special promotions. However, there are a few principles that must be upheld: First, absolutely no illegal content is allowed. Second, there can be no blatant sexual innuendo. Third, all promotional activities must ultimately contribute to the promotion of the game itself and the Moc-os system, and cannot just be vulgar gimmicks."

"I'll give you one more day to refine these ideas into actionable solutions that don't cross any red lines, and then submit them to me. Can you do that?"

Tang Yan was taken aback at first, then a surge of excitement rushed to his head. He straightened up abruptly and shouted, "Yes! President Cheng! I guarantee the mission will be completed!"

After the meeting, Tang Yan undoubtedly became the focus of everyone's attention, but those gazes were full of complex meaning.

Cheng Yi's final decision made everyone realize that this seemingly scoundrel president's assistant's underhanded tactics actually had the support of the group's top management.

Everyone knows that although Cheng Yi holds the position of president, it is only to facilitate Hammerstone Technology in better mobilizing the group's resources. The ones who actually do the work are Cheng Yi's three newly recruited young assistants.

Apart from that very low-class Tang Yan, the other two assistants are definitely among the elite.

Soon, the newly established Thresh Technology got to work.

Inside a temporarily rented film studio in the industrial park.

The air was filled with a mixture of hairspray and cheap perfume.

With an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, Tang Yan gestured and instructed several girls dressed in extremely revealing clothing and wearing heavy makeup, like a director.

"Expression! The expression should be innocent yet seductive! Yes, yes, that's it, that S-type charm, it's perfect, my darling!"

"Hold the staff firmly! Push the logo right in front of the camera!"

"Hey you, give model number three... I mean, give model number three a World of Warcraft temporary tattoo on her collarbone, the kind that's barely visible."

In the photos, the girls strike various poses related to World of Warcraft characters, but in an extremely ambiguous and provocative manner.

The background is a rough green screen; the scenery of Azeroth will be added in post-production.

The photos were taken on the edge of being illegal, with some sensitive parts barely covered by game props or text stickers, and the body covered with paint or stickers with words such as "Waiting for Azeroth," "For the Horde," and "The grand opening on 7.18."

A junior colleague next to Tang Yan was snapping photos with a digital camera while whispering to Tang Yan, "Brother Yan, isn't this... isn't this going too far? I reckon a lot of forum administrators will delete the posts."

"Delete posts?" Tang Yan scoffed and said, "What we're afraid of is that they won't delete them! Deleting them creates buzz! Only deleted posts get attention and users will spread them privately. Anyway, QQ won't delete them for us, so what's there to be afraid of? Of course, the pictures from Group A should be as normal as possible to get approved for the first wave. The pictures from Group B should be as sensational as possible, specifically for getting deleted. Then we'll have our brothers post them to stir up trouble. The more heated the argument, the higher the attention they'll get!"

He paused, then added, "Oh, and let's spread the word in the modeling world that we're offering high prices to recruit models willing to shoot more artistic pieces. Money is no object!"

"Ok."

Meanwhile, in a room next to the photography studio, a group of keyboardists he had hired were working feverishly.

They registered a large number of forum accounts and QQ numbers, and their profile pictures were all stolen from photos of unknown models from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, all of whom looked innocent yet sexy.

They quickly edited the newly taken photos and posted them on some popular forums.

[See you in Azeroth on July 7.18th! I'm giving away some small perks, anyone want to help me out? I'm not very good at games...]

Shortly after the post was published, a large number of paid accounts immediately appeared to praise it.

Honey, I'll take you.

I'm blown away by their looks!

For the sake of my goddess, I'm definitely playing this game.

I'm sorry, thank you, I'm done.

(End of this chapter)